We took a nice weekend trip at the beginning of June from Salt Lake City to hike a place that has been on my bucket list for a long time—Horseshoe Canyon.

We drove from SLC to Green River on a Friday evening. We stayed at Americas Best Value Inn. I would not stay there again. Yes, it’s cheap and it was clean. But it is not in good repair. There are a number of other options in Green River and I would choose one of those. If you can get a spot, the Green River State Park campground is gorgeous. I have stayed there before and loved it. But depending on the time of year, you need to have reservations months and months in advance. We got sandwiches for the next day at Subway and kept them in the fridge in the room. We ate dinner at The Tamarisk. If you can get a spot in the room overlooking the river, it’s really nice. The service was friendly and the food was decent—lots of options to please everyone.

We got started by 8 or so and it’s an almost 2 hour drive to Horseshoe Canyon. This is a part of Canyonlands National Park. Here’s the link: https://www.nps.gov/cany/planyourvis...shoecanyon.htm Check this for road conditions. There is a dirt road you can take the whole way from Green River o this Canyon but the road conditions looked better to take the highway to just past Goblin Valley turn off and then take a dirt road to Horseshoe Canyon. There were 2 places that had sand on the road but it wasn’t all the way across. We have a 4 wheel drive car but it doesn’t have high clearance and we were fine. You could have done that road in a 2 wheel drive car. We didn’t hit the trail till 10. It took us a good 2 hours to get to the Great Gallery because we stopped at the other rock art sites. We ate lunch there and then hiked straight back out. It took a good 2+ hours to get back to the car. The hike is 7 miles round trip and it is very exposed to sun after 12:00—even in the canyon. It was the first week in June and it was HOT—80-90 degrees. Hiking back up the sand hill out of the canyon was no joke. We are a hiking family and in good shape—that was still a challenge. I went through 4 liters of water. My husband and son easily went through 2-3 liters each. Start as early as possible and be prepared!

The trail down into the canyon is pretty well marked. Once on the canyon floor, you need to look for cairns because they point the way to the rock art panels you can see before you get to the Great Gallery. The rock art is really amazing and from different periods/cultures. The Great Gallery is gob-smacking. I have seen a lot of rock art in Utah and I have never seen something like it. Truly amazing. There is an ammo can with a descriptive booklet in it. You can also find good info on the nps website I linked above.

We drove back to town, took showers and then got dinner at Rays Tavern. People gave rave reviews to the burgers online. They were ok. Not the best I’ve ever had. The service was good and the beer was cold. I think we would have done better eating at the Tamarisk again.

Sunday morning we skipped the very limited hotel breakfast and got breakfast and snack items from the Loves travel stop/convenience store. They actually had decent stuff!!! We then drove on I 70 to the east to the exit for a dirt road that takes you to the Buckhorn Panel. https://www.blm.gov/visit/buckhorn-panel The drive was really incredible—amazing rock formations. There is a nice campground at the river and then you enter a canyon. The Buckhorn panel is the biggest/most obvious panel. There are some other rock art examples along this road—many are signed. I had a National Geographic Trails map of the area and that was very helpful.

After driving through the canyon and viewing rock art, we drove to the Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. We had never been here before! https://www.carbon.utah.gov/attracti...onal-monument/ https://www.blm.gov/visit/cleveland-...inosaur-quarry The main building has some interesting exhibits. There was only one building open that had bones in it. It was hot and windy so we didn’t do the hike around the visitor’s center. I would say that Vernal and Dinosaur National Monument has more developed for visitors and is more interesting. But if you are in the area, this is a good stop.

We then drove back to Price and onward home. It was a good weekend away and great scenery in the Swell.

Your report brings back memories of a couple of trips we made and stayed at Green River. On one we were trying to go to Buckhorn but missed the turnoff from I 70 so we kept on going a bit and went to look at a nice panel in Moore called the Rochester panel. It was an easy hike and not far off the beaten path as I recall.

We did get to Buckhorn later but it had rained before we got on the road and the mud was both slippery and sticky and covered the rental car. Fortunately there was a car wash near whew the road ended in the north we could get the mud out of thr wheels before it hardened and caused problems.

Did you take photos of the Great Gallery? It has been on my bucket list but we don’t think we could make it back out if we did get down there.

Thanks for the report

oldemalloy--I took pictures but they do not do it justice. There are pictures online if you google. The images are so detailed and amazing. Rain on those roads would be a problem!! There are a number of panels that are close to dirt roads in that area. The Swell is one place I haven't explored much and want to do more.